Tulips

Thank you for your encouraging words about my comment yesterday on Blip and my photography. I do value Blip for the record keeping and journal aspect of it, and also the social connections made through Blip, so I suppose I should not stress too much if I don't like my image for the day. I think I am going through a slump with my photography lately, an image I really liked did not score well at a recent camera club competition and I did not agree with the suggestions made by the judge- when I was with Guy Edwardes in Dorset I spoke to him about it and he thought the image was perfect as it was and I should not make the changes suggested by the judge. I appreciated that validation because as I said yesterday, often judges are not good photographers themselves so I cannot always respect their opinions, whereas Guy Edwardes is one of the best photographers I know. 

So on to last night where it was our annual mono competition at our camera club. I don't do much mono anymore these days, I appreciate good mono images but see too many where mono is used to rescue a bad shot so I have been put off mono. Besides, I love colour! I entered two images and was not expecting either to do well. We had an excellent judge as I knew he would be (as he is an outstanding photographer). As it is an annual competition, the images last night did not get scored marks but the best ones were given Highly Commended or placed 1st 2nd or 3rd. I got a very worthwhile critique on my one image, which he liked but it needed some tweaking with the processing, and the other image came 2nd in its class which I was pleased about.

I mentioned previously that for Christmas Inca and Tommy gave the family plus girlfriends a subscription to Letterloop. During the month we upload what we have been doing during the month, add photos, pose questions and polls and generally answer all the questions required for this monthly newsletter. It comes out on the first of the month so this morning I really enjoyed reading everyone's contributions. Of course some post-newsletter debate goes on, especially with the questions. Your questions can be serious or silly. My serious one was 'Do you think parents of significantly obese children under the age of 5 can/should be accused of child abuse?' That involved quite a few comments - to lighter questions like guessing the name of my niece's new baby which is arriving in May. It is a wonderful way to stay connected and I enjoy reading about Adam's research too with some of his comments. Tip from Adam - human cells produce DNA repairing protein when they get cold, so to ensure longevity sleep in a cold bedroom at night!  

These tulips are in my garden - another ordinary image, haha!